Connie Britton Helps Welcome Kurdish Refugee Family to Nashville

Connie Britton helps welcome the family to Nashville. (Photo: Instagram)
Connie Britton helps welcome the family to Nashville. (Photo: Instagram)

Connie Britton is organizing and mobilizing, y’all.

While Donald Trump clashes with the courts over his controversial immigration ban, the politically active Nashville star, 49, helped welcome a Kurdish refugee family to the U.S. on Sunday. The family had been stopped last week on their way to Nashville, following Trump’s hastily executed executive order. Despite having valid U.S. visas, they were sent back to Iraq. But the nightmare for Fuad Sharef Suleman and his family came to an end last night — and Britton was on hand with Nashville Mayor Megan Barry and Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., to welcome the city’s newest residents.

Britton, who took part in the Women’s March at Sundance last month and was a vocal Obama supporter, alerted her fans via social media that the family would be arriving — and shared the homemade signs that she made along with her son, Eyob (“Yoby”), and pal Alex Thomopoulos.

“Tonight I’ll be joining @mayormeganbarry at the airport to welcome the Sharefs, a Kurdish refugee family as they arrive in Nashville to begin their new life,” Britton wrote. “The father, an interpreter with a US gov’t organization, the mother, a kindergarten teacher, and their 3 children will be joining one of the largest Kurdish populations in the US right here in Nashville (who knew?!). They were turned away on their journey last week but will now finally arrive home. So we’ve been baking cookies and making welcome signs today, pre-Super Bowl! If you have any positive messages of welcome for the Sharefs, go ahead and leave them in the comments, and I will include them with our signs and notes! #yallmeansall.”

Later, she shared an updated image of them at the airport.

“THEY MADE IT! Welcome to America, Sharef family!” she wrote. “The American dream was alive and well in Nashville tonight. And I passed along your many beautiful comments and wishes (along with the cookies of course). Thank you!! Inspired with love and gratitude for who we really are.”

The Sharefs were just a handful of the many people affected by Trump’s 90-day ban on citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — and a 120-day ban on all refugees — from entering the U.S. However, they took advantage of a Seattle judge’s ruling on Friday, which temporarily suspended the executive order, to get to their new home. They landed at JFK airport in New York, and transferred to a flight to Tennessee.


During the weekend, Trump took to Twitter to complain about the judge who temporarily blocked the immigration order from being enforced nationwide.

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